by Lynne Hinton
And even though Sister Eve was in undisclosed hands, she felt a divine protection.
FORTY-SEVEN
When Eve awoke, her throat and mouth felt dry, and all she could see was a narrow stream of light coming through a crack in the ceiling of the building where she lay. Sunlight, she thought, but there was no evidence to prove the light’s original source. She thought the ceiling looked like it had been made with boards, and as she slowly turned to her side, it appeared as if the walls were made from the same lumber.
She had no idea how long she had been there. She had no idea of how much time had passed. She stared above her at the narrow opening and thought about where she might be. As she tried to focus her vision, Eve realized that she could open only one eye. She breathed as normally as she was able, and even though she wanted to see what was wrong with her, see if she could get up and find water or try to call for help, she wasn’t sure which body part to attempt to move first. For a moment, other than the horrible dryness in her throat and mouth, there was no real physical discomfort, but that moment was fleeting. In less than a few seconds, everything hurt.
She was able to assess that she was lying on her back, her arms and hands resting across her belly. She tried to lift her head but was immediately stopped by the stabbing pain on her left side and the nausea that suddenly took over her body. After staying awake for a few minutes, trying to keep from blacking out again, she decided to remain in the same position but to attempt to take an inventory of her injuries. She wanted to know what had happened to her body.
She started with her feet, her hiking boots and the thick socks still on, trying to move them a bit, first wiggling her toes and then sliding her heels up and back. There was some success in her movements, and from what she could tell, at least from her lower extremities, there was only minimal damage. She felt only a slight ache in her right ankle.
She moved her attention elsewhere, scanning upward, thinking that her legs seemed fine. Her hips and back, however, felt terribly uncomfortable. Again, it was the left side that hurt the most. She didn’t think her pelvis had been fractured, but it had certainly suffered a blow. She could hardly move from side to side, her left hip was so painful. She stopped moving and surveyed her belly and chest, again feeling that there had been no real damage to that area of her body. However, as soon as she tried to lift her arms, the pain in her left shoulder immediately pushed the breath from her body. She groaned.
It was dislocated or broken, she wasn’t sure which; she knew only that the pain was sharp and radiated down her arm and up and across the back of her neck. The left side of her face was also injured. She rested her left arm across her chest and raised her right hand to explore. She immediately felt both the swelling and a sticky substance that had matted in her hair and dripped down her shirt, expecting that there was more than likely a cut or gash beneath the swelling and that blood had been shed. As far as she could tell, however, the area was not still bleeding; the blood had clotted sometime after the injury occurred.
She slid her fingers across her left eye, taking great care as she touched, but she was still unprepared for the pain that followed. She stopped and rested her right hand on her cheek. She winced in agony but tried to keep a steady and regular breath.
As best as Eve could tell, she had suffered the impact of whatever had happened on the left side of her body. She wasn’t clear if she had been hit on that side or pushed hard against that side, but it was certain from the pain that the left side of her face, shoulder, head, and hip had received the brunt of whatever had taken place.
She brought her arm back down to her side, closed her right eye, and tried to remember what had happened. It took a few minutes, everything fuzzy at first, but suddenly the images and her recall became clear. She remembered that she had been driving on the road from the Salinas National Monument south toward the ghost town of Claunch. She had been following John Barr all the way from the Pecos Canyon because she had seen the blue cloak in his house. She assumed that he would lead her to Brother Anthony, and she had not told anyone where she was going.
While driving down the dirt road after leaving Salinas, she had been thinking about Sister Maria and the archbishop, and for some reason she could not name, she had been crying, she thought. She was weeping about something—she didn’t quite remember what, but she was still able to feel some unnamed sadness—when she was hit by another vehicle coming from the right side, the impact causing her body to crash into the door and window on the driver’s side.
From there, the details felt a bit murkier. She was unclear about the other vehicle, the other driver who had hit her, and she wasn’t sure how she got from her truck to wherever it was that she now lay. What did seem clear was that she was not receiving help in this place where she was. There were no bandages on her injuries, no water at her side, no blanket or pillow, no medications to ease the pain. No one was with her. She had been taken from the accident and placed in this building that let in only a sliver of light.
As Eve assessed the situation she was in, she realized that the hit on her truck had been intended to harm her. And even though she had survived the crash, it was evident to her that she remained in danger. She had to get up. She knew she had to find a way to get out of the place she had been stashed because it seemed apparent that whoever had hit her and brought her there would at some point come back.
Eve was so thirsty, and after the brief awakening and assessment of her injuries, once again so sleepy. And yet she understood the gravity of her situation. She understood that she couldn’t fall back to sleep. She had to try to stay awake, try to get up and figure out a way to get assistance.
“Help!” She tried calling out but could tell that her voice was too low to be heard. “Help me!” she called out again, the sounds of her own cries causing her to become more and more distressed.
She stopped shouting and tried to concentrate on where she might be. She recalled the dirt road she had traveled from the national monument, how long and desolate it had seemed to her at the time. She remembered the empty landscape, the pastures devoid of cattle or horses. She remembered how lonesome the plains had looked to her from the inside of her father’s truck as she drove along trying to find John Barr, and she knew that if her kidnapper had taken her anywhere near where he had crashed into her on the road, there was likely no one in or around the vicinity.
Eve knew how isolated it was beyond the ruins of the Gran Quivira. She knew how practically all of the buildings in the area had been abandoned, how few residents made a home anywhere near the place. There was no water source south of Mountainair, no river or stream, and that had been the reason many scholars gave for the desolation, the reason that the fields and the towns remained uninhabited.
This was the dry and dust-caked desert, settled by Indians, conquered by the Spanish, and farmed by those thinking they could weather the storms and overcome the odds. But in the end, nobody stayed, everybody left, and as Eve considered where she had been brought and abandoned, she felt the despair of those who had come and eventually gone.
“Help me,” she called out again and slowly slid her right arm out to her side to feel around her. She was surprised when her fingers touched the edge of a cloth, and when they did, she reached as far as she could, grabbed a handful, and pulled. Perhaps, she thought as she yanked, it was a blanket or sack or something that she could use for a pillow or a bandage. She pulled as hard as she could, but the garment seemed to be stuck on or attached to something, and as she grasped and tugged harder, she immediately knew what she had found.
She was lying next to someone else.
Sister Eve let go of the cloth and screamed, shocked to discover the body, but then as her nerves settled, curiosity took over. She carefully lifted herself up, trying to touch the body beside her, but just as she raised her head and leaned over, the room began to spin and Eve fell back, unconscious once again.
FORTY-EIGHT
There was a blueness all around her, soft and disarming, growing in intensity, a blur of color suddenly coming more and more into focus. So very light at first, a blue of water, an edge of the horizon, but then deeper and darker, a winter sky blueness, suddenly filling the space all around her, filling the room, filling her heart, a blueness that spoke to Eve of endless rest.
Eve felt the changes beginning within her. Small changes, not unlike the blueness, began to manifest into something transformative. She felt the pain ease away from her bit by bit. The discomfort from her injuries simply evaporated from her, part by part, bottom to top, just like the assessment she had done on herself earlier.
Feet and legs, hips and back, chest and shoulders, neck and face and head. Soon nothing ached or hurt. Her face and head were not bloody. Her eye was not swollen shut. Her shoulder and arm, the side that felt so broken, so damaged, the hip and ankle, all of the wounds had been healed.
She then felt some part of herself sit up, felt something from within her body, her spirit, her inner being, pulling slowly out of what still lay on the floor, something pulling slowly out and away, leaving the shell that she had lived in all of her life, now resting on the floor beneath, the wounds still present upon it, the blood, the swelling, the bruising, all of it still remaining there.
She felt a twinge of sorrow to leave it, this body of hers, and for a brief moment she wanted to kneel down to bless it, touch it, but in the blueness that filled the room, she was so content, so deeply happy to be out of the broken vessel that had been her body, she did not want to hover too close. No longer held within it or bound completely by it, she was not thirsty or afraid or sad or confused; she felt nothing of the things that had only seconds earlier overwhelmed her. She had been released from what had been, and there was only the blueness that moved around her and even through her, lifting her up and beyond herself.
She felt light and unattached and free, and Eve then knew a deep and abiding love, a piercing love that she recognized, had felt before, albeit fleetingly and never lasting. This love, however, this presence of such an all-consuming emotion, remained. This time the love did not leave her but rather enveloped her. And while previously in her life there had been only glimpses during such an experience, this time Eve was completely and fully immersed in this love.
Heaven, she thought as she saw her body lying beneath her. This must be heaven, the blue of the sky, the leaving of my body; this must be what is happening. I am dying. I am dead. But she remained somewhat confused when she realized there were no angels or spiritual beings leading her to another place. All she knew was this embodiment of love holding her in the vast and divine blueness.
Without direction or guidance, a part of Eve seemed to know what to do, an instinct telling her how to lean into the lightness, relax into the beauty of what carried her, what held her, and because of this deep wisdom within her, she did not question or doubt or worry about the suddenness and unexpectedness of what had come upon her. It was as if the very essence of her nature, the very basic element of how she was defined, knew where she was going, what was overcoming her, and what was being required of her, which Eve suddenly understood was nothing. Nothing was being asked or expected or pulled from her. For the very first time that she could recall, the simple creation of herself, showing up in her original form, was all there was for her to do.
She closed her eyes and a loosening of ties began, ties anchoring her to her body, to the earth beneath her. She felt ropes and ribbons fall from her, colored strings and thick yarns; and with each untying, she moved higher and higher into the blueness, into that perfect event of love. It was like shedding old skins, coming out of a cocoon, spinning and spinning out of chains and cords and strips of cloth. And with each letting go, she breathed into a higher state of awareness.
When the undoing was finished, she knew she was not completely unbound. There were still one or two, maybe more, but not many ties that wrapped around her as she moved away from her body, away from the building where she had been, away from the earth, all of it now below her. She was not completely unloosed, but the ties she still felt around and coming from within her were not cumbersome or burdensome. It was almost as if she felt glad that they were there even as she yearned for the complete release, the whole of letting go.
“Evangeline.” The voice that spoke, the first one calling her, was so familiar, from so long ago, that immediately Eve began to cry. Just from the sound of her name, just from the way it felt to hear it spoken by that voice again.
“Evangeline, I have loved you so long.”
Eve couldn’t help herself, the tears held for so many years, this moment prayed for and wanted so desperately. She could hardly call out, but the word stayed on her lips as she melted into the oneness she first remembered.
“Mama,” she said and was immediately engulfed in what seemed like the warmest and oldest embrace she had ever known. Her mother had come to her.
“I miss you,” Eve heard herself say. “I miss you so much.”
“I am always with you,” she heard the reply. “Always.”
And the love and the embrace held her, sustained her, filled her, until suddenly there was another presence with them, another presence that held them both, Eve and the spirit of her deceased mother.
Eve recognized it as the same presence that had been with her when she first pulled away from her body, the presence of the blueness. A cape, a cloud, it seemed so hard to name what it was, but the blueness came through her again, bathing her in warmth and peace.
“You are safe,” another voice spoke out, a voice other than her mother’s.
Eve wanted to shout the words, sing the words, laugh the words, “I know.” She felt them so deeply. “I know, I know, I know.”
“Not here,” the voice replied.
And Eve was stunned by the revelation.
“You are safe there,” the voice added.
“But I don’t want to be there,” Eve said, hearing how she sounded, so young and so fierce. “I want to be here, with you, here.”
“You will be safe there,” the voice said. “But you must go back because there are still bindings that are not ready to be loosed. There is still work to be done.”
Before she could even respond, before she could ask for more time, Eve was already starting to feel the blueness lifting from her, away from her. She could feel the memory of her mother’s embrace, the feeling of such a thing, but not the embrace itself any longer.
She felt herself being called back, quietly, easily, but still back to what lay beneath her, back to the earth, back to the old shed, back to the hard wooden floor, back to her broken body. It was slow and not painful, not disturbing, just a simple return, a baby placed back into the crib after being in her mother’s arms. It was gentle and done with great compassion and love.
“He needs you,” the voice called out, sounding farther and farther away. “You must go back for him.”
And suddenly, she fully realized the agony and brokenness of her body.
Eve screamed out in pain.
FORTY-NINE
When Eve first heard the moans, she thought they had to be coming from her own mouth, a response to her own pain. Once conscious again, she had heard herself scream, and she imagined that the groans were what followed, a consequence to feeling once more her injuries. However, as she turned her head and felt beside her again, touching the body near her that she had discovered earlier, she understood that the other person in the room where she had been abandoned was alive and making the noises.
She tried to roll over onto her right side, the side that had not felt the full impact of the car wreck and that was facing the other person. She tried lifting first her left shoulder and then her left hip, but the pain was unbearable. She tried again, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes and concentrating
as hard as she could to turn her body and move through the agony.
Slowly, she pulled and turned until she was on her right side, and as she fell on her hip, she felt ahead of her with her right hand and realized she was indeed facing a leg, a man’s leg, she thought, shoeless but still wearing socks. She moved her fingers up the leg until she felt what seemed like a gown or a long skirt, the cloth she had yanked earlier, and Eve understood she was feeling the simple cotton tunic of a monk.
She pushed with her right leg, sliding herself up to the man’s face.
“Anthony,” she said, touching her friend’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “Anthony, it’s Eve,” she said again, no longer aware of her own pain. She felt along his face, his chin, his cheeks, his closed eyes.
Slowly, she pulled herself up so that she was sitting next to the young man. There was still little light in the room, so she was unable to see the face of her friend, but she leaned in close enough to feel him breathing even if he would not respond to her calls.
“Anthony.” She pulled his head and shoulders onto her lap, patted him on the cheek and across his forehead. “Anthony, you need to wake up.”
He moaned, winced, and moved a little, pulling himself away from her lap and back onto the floor.
Eve leaned over him and, with her good arm, tried to pull him up. “Anthony, we need to get out of here. You need to wake up.”
He responded only by pulling away and groaning again.
Eve stopped. She couldn’t tell what had happened to the monk. She couldn’t see any injuries on him, no blood around his body, no apparent wounds that she could feel, but it was so dark in the room she was not able to get a clear look at the man, not able to do a decent assessment of his injuries.